But I See You
by moonswirl
Summary: Gleekathon, day six hundred and forty-three: The first time she got slushied, he was right there to defend her.


_Started my daily ficlets to make the hiatus pass, then decided to keep going with a 2nd cycle, and then a 3rd, 4th, etc through 30th cycle. Now cycle 31!_

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><p><strong>Hear that little bird twitter!<strong> _Been thinking about doing this for a couple days, then this morning decided to just go for it. If you go there, find 'gleekathon' and there I'll be. There's also a video explaining everything... Yep... ;) Check it out!_

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><p><strong>"But I See You"<br>15/14yo Mike/Tina  
>Chang Squared #11 (Sequel to 'Campfire Light')<strong>

**A/N: mag721, my thinking cap's off to you :D thanks for the typing! **

He did not want to consider something like this ever happening to her… Who would do this to someone as sweet as Tina? Who would throw a slushie in her face?

On Tuesdays they would arrive at school together but almost immediately they would be parted, as Tina went to one class and Mike went to another. They would kiss goodbye at their lockers and walk down opposite ends of the hallway. Mike would usually stop, just to watch her go…even her walk was kind of adorable to him, and that day especially, by virtue of the bounce in her step… It would come about when she was particularly happy about something, in this case a new hat she'd bought, which was in the shape of a panda. Once she'd turned the corner, he became aware of the smile on his face and tried to play it off, with everyone in the halls.

It was easy to tell if you were remotely close to a slushie hit. There was a sharp intake of breath, a splash, and even from farther away there was the reaction of those who actually had been close enough…

He knew… the moment he caught laughter from down the hall. If he hadn't stopped to watch her go, he wouldn't have been there to realize what had just happened. But he had that gut feeling telling him he had to run.

Whoever had done the deed was gone by the time Mike got around the corner… She wasn't there either, but it had been her. Next to a pool of purple slush, there was her bag. He went and picked it up, looking around. One girl was kind enough to point toward the girls' bathroom. He went up to the door, pushed it just a bit.

"Tina, it's me, are you okay?" She didn't reply, but he recognized the sniffles. He looked around; he didn't want to be seen trying to enter the girls' bathroom and get called out, keeping him from coming to his girlfriend's help. With his entrance cleared, he slipped through the door… He had a moment's thought for the chance he'd meet that same resistance inside, but he barely had time to realize there was no one else when he saw her.

She was hunched over the sink; whatever she was doing was obscured by a curtain of sticky, drenched, and dripping hair, but he had to guess she was cleaning something. "Tina?" he called. She paused, turning her head so he saw her face. He froze. There was a big clump of the purple stuff, gripping to her forehead from her hair… He could see trickles of it coming down, icy and purple…and there were tears.

"Hey…" was all she'd say. He looked around and spotted the paper towel dispenser, pulling hard and ripping out what came flying out. He ripped out part of this long section, moving up to her to remove the clump on her forehead. His tending to her only allowed her to surrender to fragility. "Look…" She held up what she had been trying to clean, even before herself: the panda hat. It had gotten heavily hit as well, and despite her attempts to make it white again, it was bleeding purple.

"Mind if I try?" he asked, holding his hands out. She sighed, giving it to him. He took her place at the sink, getting to work. His mother was a stain pro, from his football or baseball uniforms, and he'd been shown those tricks, so he could handle his own stains. He could, and he would do this for her.

"I just want to go home…" she stood at his side, looking at herself.

"Why?" he asked, but she quieted up again.

"Who did this?" he asked after a while, and she must have caught the edge in his voice, because it got her talking.

"It's not… I don't…"

"Tina…" he tried again.

"I know what you're going to do; I don't want to see you get in trouble… or hurt," she shook her head.

"I don't want them to start thinking it's okay to do this to you," he shook his head, still scrubbing.

"But what are you going to do?" she asked, and he had to stop and really listen to what she said, how she said it. She didn't want him getting in trouble for her sake, to avenge her, and he could get that… He wasn't up for confrontation, not unless he really had to… But as much as he really felt the need to hit this guy, he knew he wouldn't do it. He still wanted to know, so he could keep an eye on him…

But he had this feeling, as he heard her, that this wasn't what was on her mind, behind those words.

"It was just one time." He put the hat down to dry and turned to look at her and see how she would respond. She turned her head down, picking at her hair.

"Just the first…" she shrugged. "They'll do it again, to me…" His face saddened again, knowing she'd be crying. He brought her into his arms, slushie transfer be damned.

"What do they know? You're like twenty-seven kinds of awesome…" He felt something like a snort, muffled in his chest. "And completely beautiful…" He saw her eyes slowly turn up toward him, looking a bit more at ease again. "And you let me hold your hand, call you my girlfriend…" She wasn't crying anymore… He could see her smile. "No amount of slushie is going to change that. They just like messing with people..." his voice halted, keeping himself from falling back into revenge mode. "I'm always going to be there if this happens again," he promised. All at once, that statement made her feel secure and nervous.

"How's the panda?" she turned the conversation to something a bit more secure.

"See for yourself," he pulled back and picked it up to show. He had worked a miracle. There was still some purple left, but it was so subtle it was as good as not there.

"Thank you," she smiled. "Guess I should wash my hair if I want to wear it again…" She looked better now, more so when she turned to him. "Have you ever… been slushied?"

"It ran all the way down to my underwear," he confided and she burst out laughing.

THE END

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><p><strong>AN: This is a one-shot ficlet, which means that signing up for story alert will not bring you any alerts.  
><strong>**In the event of a sequel, the story will be separate from this one. And as chapter stories go, they are  
><strong>******always clearly indicated as such [ex: "Days 204-210" in the summary] Thank you!******


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